got ethical husbandry?

MD’s 90 Gallon Shallow Reef

SupraSaltyReefer said:
Looking good! Rockscape has lots of flat surfaces for coral placement. Are you going BB or sand?
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I was almost going to go BB but I want sand sifters so added sand. Guess I didn’t need the black bottom after all lol. Does this look like too much? Not too late to take some out
 

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MarcosD said:
I’ve been playing around with the 4 structures and I think this is my final placement. Leaves me a perimeter around scale to clean panels. Some space in the back to fill in with live rock. Space in the front to put some sand corals. Definitely want a Zoa rock on the front right side of the tank. If there’s anything I could change about this scape is I would’ve made the tree structure on the right a couple inches shorter. It’s too close to the RFG nozzle and probably going to get some pretty high PAR there. Maybe I’ll end up starting some SPS and placing it there.
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Looks awesome.
 
MarcosD said:
I’ve been playing around with the 4 structures and I think this is my final placement. Leaves me a perimeter around scale to clean panels. Some space in the back to fill in with live rock. Space in the front to put some sand corals. Definitely want a Zoa rock on the front right side of the tank. If there’s anything I could change about this scape is I would’ve made the tree structure on the right a couple inches shorter. It’s too close to the RFG nozzle and probably going to get some pretty high PAR there. Maybe I’ll end up starting some SPS and placing it there.
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Did you plan on drilling holes for coral placement or using frag plug seats?
 
fishy408 said:
Did you plan on drilling holes for coral placement or using frag plug seats?
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I started drilling holes on the smaller structure using a masonry bit and I got two done and on the 3rd one the shelf rock split in half. So not attempting to do any more. Luckily I glued it back with superglue and grounded up bits of rock so you can’t tell but I don’t want to risk anymore. The first two I made actually came out pretty clean. Going to go with the frag plug seats.

Who’s making your rock? Maybe you could ask if they can drill it for you? I’m sure that’ll add a good amount to the cost though
 

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MarcosD said:
I started drilling holes on the smaller structure using a masonry bit and I got two done and on the 3rd one the shelf rock split in half. So not attempting to do any more. Luckily I glued it back with superglue and grounded up bits of rock so you can’t tell but I don’t want to risk anymore. The first two I made actually came out pretty clean. Going to go with the frag plug seats.

Who’s making your rock? Maybe you could ask if they can drill it for you? I’m sure that’ll add a good amount to the cost though
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Michael is making it for me as well. I plan on using frag seats. I ordered the frag seats today and should be arriving by next week.
 
Ended up jumping the gun and ordering a Hydros X4 / XP8 PRO Pack controller. Will also be using their ATO as well. Doser will also be Hydros, I see a few different ones so I’ll have to look more into each. If anyone has any recommendations please LMK :) Till now I’ve just been manually dosing. Going to have a lot of time at home the next several weeks so once I can get up and moving I’ll play around with the wires.

Also got some final PAR readings after playing around with the Nicrew Controller. The preset setting they have looks like but I was getting PAR readings 300+. I copied the same light intensities but 1/2d them and changed the time on/off to match my other tank. Ended up getting ~125 at the lower shelves and ~175-190ish at the upper shelves on the main structure. The tall structure to the right that I’m thinking of putting SPS on is ~250ish

I mounted the lights with the stock mounts. Not sure how I feel about them. My other lights are hung but the other hanging kits for the HyperReefs aren’t released yet. I reached out to them and they said sometime Q1 but that the Ecotech hanging kits would also work. I considered the RMS multi light mount but not sure how I feel about the look. Will probably try to DIY some form of aluminum extrusion hanging mount in the near future. Only issue is where I mounted the hooks for my last tights, I didn’t put this tank centered with them. So I’d have to put two more holes in the ceiling. Also need to find a UBC to USB that can connect both lights without so much slack
 
Hydros stuff is pretty great, and there are a lot of us here than can help you. I’m not a power user by any means but I’ve got a pretty extensive collective that covers a lot (control, xp8, WiFi, ATO, soles, wave engine, minnow).

Re dosing - the minnow is great for scheduled, small doses. I am using it for Alk/Ca duty. Has been great for this. Stays calibrated, very quiet, easy to setup.

The Sole is better for continuous duty and/or precision dosing over time like Kalkwasser, auto water change, lanthanum. It’s overkill for element dosing, and is pretty large and robust. Not as easy to setup (see my tank journal) but is also dead accurate and stays calibrated. I have two on AWC duty.
 
derek_SR said:
Hydros stuff is pretty great, and there are a lot of us here than can help you. I’m not a power user by any means but I’ve got a pretty extensive collective that covers a lot (control, xp8, WiFi, ATO, soles, wave engine, minnow).

Re dosing - the minnow is great for scheduled, small doses. I am using it for Alk/Ca duty. Has been great for this. Stays calibrated, very quiet, easy to setup.

The Sole is better for continuous duty and/or precision dosing over time like Kalkwasser, auto water change, lanthanum. It’s overkill for element dosing, and is pretty large and robust. Not as easy to setup (see my tank journal) but is also dead accurate and stays calibrated. I have two on AWC duty.
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I have been eying the minnow. Going to look more into it
 
Despite the mix up, you were right on target buying the Hydros.

Regarding the dosing, I am using four Ecotech versa across the two tanks and I do share @derek_SR sentiment on their reliability - they seem to be hit or miss.

The big gun is the Hydros sole and I would probably bite the bullet and pay the rather high price and only buy this type of dosing pump going forward - once I figure out how to mount this beast or two of them. Precision with element dosing is key - I am dosing highly diluted bicarb 350 ml daily in 30 minutes, and every four weeks the pump is off by 10%+ which is super annoying.
 
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